Category: Oscar Nominee

On Christmas Eve, newlywed couple Jim Hutton and Jane Fonda, without prior warning, arrive at the home of his Korean War buddy Anthony Franciosa, whose wife has just left him. Already unsure of the commitment they’ve made, the newlyweds get a firsthand look at the future they have in store for themselves. I really went into this thinking it was supposed to be a comedy, but it’s nowhere near. The men are universally awful. Hutton deserts Fonda within minutes of arriving at the home. Franciosa readily admits that his wife was homely when they met and he only married her for her money. He also calls his son a sissy and destroys his favorite toy to teach him how to be a man or something.

Oscar Nomination: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White

Billeted in an Austrian convent run by mother superior Ethel Barrymore in post World War II Europe, British colonel Walter Pidgeon, along with aides Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford, and Robert Coote, is tasked with monitoring for possible subversive activities against Allied countries while also supporting the repatriation of Soviet citizens. Complications arise when Lawford falls in love with Russian ballerina Vivien Leigh who is in hiding at the convent. A potentially intriguing story about the early days of the Cold War is marred by heavy-handed religious propaganda where Pidgeon’s understandable post-War agnosticism is deemed unacceptable by Barrymore and the film. It also requires a buy-in of a lukewarm romance between bland Peter Lawford and weak-willed Leigh. At least Lansbury’s character escaped that fate.

Oscar Nomination: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White